Elsie's Womanhood eBook

“What is it, little wife?” he asked; “your
face is grave almost to sadness.”

“I was thinking,” she answered, with her
eye still upon her father’s letter open in her
hand. “Papa says,” and she read aloud
from the sheet, “How long you are lingering
in Viamede. When will you return? Tell Travilla
I am longing for a sight of the dear face his eyes
are feasting upon, and he must remember his promise
not to part us.

“I am writing in your boudoir. I have been
thinking of the time (it seems but yesterday) when
I had you here a little girl, sitting on my knee reciting
your lessons or listening with almost rapt attention
to my remarks and explanations. Never before
had tutor so dear, sweet, and interesting a scholar!”

“A fond father’s partiality,” she
remarked, looking up with a smile and blush.
“But never, I am sure, was such another tutor;
his lucid explanations, intense interest in the subject
and his pupil, apt illustrations, and fund of information
constantly opened up to me, made my lessons a delight.”

“He has made you wonderfully well informed and
thorough,” said her husband.

She colored with pleasure.

“Such words are very sweet, coming from your
lips. You appreciate papa.”

“Yes, indeed, and his daughter too, I hope,”
he answered, smiling fondly upon her. “Yes,
your father and I have been like brothers since we
were little fellows. It seems absurd to think
of him in any other relation.”

“But what about going home? isn’t it time,
as papa thinks?”

“That you shall decide, ma chere; our
life here has been very delightful to me, and to you
also, I hope.”

“Very, if we had your mother and papa and mamma
and the children here, I should like to stay all winter.
But as it is I think we ought to return soon.”
He assented, and after a little more consultation they
decided to go soon—­not later than the middle
of the next week, but the day was not set.

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH.

“The low reeds bent
by the streamlet’s side,
And hills to the thunder
peal replied;
The lightning burst
on its fearful way
While the heavens were
lit in its red array.”
—­WILLIS
GAYLORD CLARK.

“Thither, full fraught
with mischievous revenge
Accurs’d, and
in a cursed hour he hies.”
—­MILTON’S
PARADISE LOST.

They were alone that evening, and retired earlier
than usual. They had been quietly sleeping for
some time when Elsie was wakened by a sudden gust
of wind that swept round the house, rattling doors
and windows; then followed the roll and crash of thunder,
peal on peal, accompanied with vivid flashes of lightning.

Elsie was not timid in regard to thunder and lightning;
she knew so well that they were entirely under the
control of her Father, without whom not a hair of
her head could perish; she lay listening to the war
of the elements, thinking of the words of the Psalmist,
“The clouds poured out water: the skies
sent out a sound; Thine arrows also went abroad.
The voice of Thy thunder was in the heaven; the lightnings
lightened the world, the earth trembled and shook.”